Topic starter
12/04/2011 8:18 pm
Steamboating colleagues:
Yesterday, while researching the archives at the Literary Club, I uncovered an old listing of MAIL BOATS/PACKET LINES operating out of Cincinnati in the year 1900. There was a lot of steamboat activity here in Cincinnati at that time and for those interested I'll append below the list of companies operating then.
1. 'Cincinnati & Arkansas River Packet Co.'
2. 'Cincinnati & Green River Packet Co.'
3. 'Louisville & Cincinnati Packet Co.' [Frederick Laidley, Gen. Manager]
4. 'Cincinnati & Nashville Packet Co.'
5. 'Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Big Sandy & Pomeroy Packet Co.'
6. 'Cincinnati & Red River Packet Co.'
7. 'Cincinnati & St. Louis Packet Co.'
8. 'Cincinnati & Tennessee River Packet Co.'
9. 'Pittsburgh & Cincinnati Packet Co.'
10. 'Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & Louisville Packet Co.'
11. 'Memphis & Arkansas Packet Co.'
12. 'Memphis & Cincinnati Packet Co.'
13. 'Memphis & Nashville Packet Co.'
14. 'Memphis & Tennessee River Packet Co.'
15. 'Memphis & White River Packet Co.'
16. 'New Orleans & Red River Packet Co.'
17. Tacoma Transportation Co.'
18. 'Ohio River Transportation Co.'
19. Edington Packet Co.' [Strs. CHARLES B. PIERCE & M.P. WELLS]
Other than local packet offices on wharfboats other lines were represented with 'through connections' of passengers and freight. Some never landed boats here at all. Mr. J.P. Dorman evidently one agent representing many with offices at 222 E. Front St. His services on a commission basis similar to many agents down to the bitter end of packet steamboating. Horace P. Lyle was one such I knew ending his days before retirement with the venerable GREENE LINE STEAMERS. The GREENE LINE didn't move to Cincinnati until the year 1904. 'General Manager' appears to be the term applied then to steamboat owners, operators and this endured down to the final days of Betty Blake with the DQSB CO. Her official title was 'General Manager.'
I share Shipyard Sam's thinking on how it would have been then for a young man stroll the landing and offices here seeking a new 'berth' on a steamer. Those days gone, gone, long gone.
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati - 'Librarian/Archivist' Literary Club.
13/04/2011 12:15 am
Hey Dale,
Interesting stuff here. It's long been interesting amongst my friends interested in history, usually while sitting around a campfire, to discuss what events in history you'd like to experience firsthand if you had an opportunity to go back in time. How it must have looked with all those steamers lined up along the riverfront. A steamboat event usually tops my list. Your list makes one ponder if there was ever an attempt to have the most boats docked at one time all together for a photo opportunity. What's the most steamboats ever photographed at one time.
Thanks for sharing this info!
Aaron
Topic starter
13/04/2011 10:51 am
*RE: Steamboat group photos*
Hi, A.J. & steamboating colleagues:
Photos of steamboats were common at landings but a catch-when-catch-can proposition with daily arrivals/departures. Big events: lock and dam completion, presidential visits, state/civic, national birthdays such as 1876. The one big steamboat panorama was taken in Pittsburgh 1911 marking the 100th year of the Str. NEW ORLEANS. I can't recall the exact number of boats docked for the panorama photo but know Keith and others may nail down the total. I'm too lazy to pull the older S&D REFLECTOR containing Fred Way's stellar article on this event. 'Tall Stacks' in earlier years another similar event. Unfortunately some non-river thinkers on the early 'Tall Stacks' events thought the boats would just sit at the landing to look pretty for photo ops. They quickly learned that passenger cruise and excursion steamboats etc. don't work that way. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
13/04/2011 11:50 am
Today's postal service could learn a lot from their 1900 acivities. At that time mail was shipped out on the first vehicle headed toward the mail's destination and sorted en route. Today it is shipped out to a computerized sorting center, where it stops for a day or two, then shipped out to another sorting center, then delivered. In 1900 a postal card could move from Louisville to Brooklyn, NY in less than two days. Today five days, most of it in trucks between sorting centers, is considered quick delivery.
In five days a packet boat could take a letter from Cincinnati to well below Memphis.
I have long advocated that the Waterways Journal be delivered by barge - not only cheaply, but quickly.
14/04/2011 6:40 am
Alan - You're assessment from 110 years ago would be correct for the length of time it took to get a piece of mail from Louisville to New York. Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of growth in our country in the interim, which, I believe, is one of the reasons for a delay.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 1900 population was 76,094,000 people. A couple months ago, they announced that the 2010 official population was in excess of 308,000,000 people. That is 232 million population growth in 110 years. Unfortunately, the USPS systems (plus extra security after the 2001 anthrax scare) have not kept up with the population and business growth.
I will cut the USPS a little slack here, but I do believe they should do better.
Topic starter
14/04/2011 11:12 am
*RE: Steamboat U.S. Mail*
Hi, Alan & Jeff:
I was surprised to find in the records that 'some' steamboat U.S. Mail contracts were still being awarded down and through the year 1910. Granted the major river routes from city to city were diminishing due to railroad competition; then truck. We're lucky here in that our U.S. Mail and UPS divisions are heads and shoulders above the average. I really can't complain with the volume of mail in and out here. Alan correct on the speed in delivering a letter or two cent postcard years ago.
The list of MAIL/PACKET COMPANIES more intriguing as you study them. Many were inter-connecting companies for freight/passengers; other also linked to passenger rail service. Even by 1900 the direct Cincinnati to New Orleans boat service had ended. 'Commodore' Fred Laidley wrote to Capt. Ellis Mace about the flak he caught here in Cincinnati when he later terminated the Cincinnati to Memphis boats and the Cincinnati to NO before that.
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
14/04/2011 8:43 pm
Connecting the Dots
A few of my Kentucky ancestor's penny postcards survive from the early 1900's. Great-grandma Eliza, living in Sanders, wrote a card to her daughter Emma, early of a morning, and had it in the first mail for Worthville - some eight miles distant - a long ways by horse, jolt wagon, or foot, but not so far by the L&N RR that connected the dots.
She wrote: "Hope all is well over yonder. Looks like rain."
Daughter Emma had a return card on the afternoon train from Worthville to Sanders: "Mostly fine. Little Jesse's bee stung. Garden needs rain."
The women were more pleased than a text messenger would be today pounding on those tiny keyboards ... and probably communicated more effectively in less words, too. And both grandmothers were truly amazed at the speed of their correspondence and surely marveled at the Age in which they lived.
.
Topic starter
14/04/2011 9:49 pm
*RE: 'Connecting the dots.'*
Hey, Shipyard:
I knew you'd link in sooner or or later. Your quotes from those penned missives are intriguing--short, sweet, concise with no 'hidden meanings.' Far cry from today on E=Mail and web sites. Hey, postage even at 2 cents was a real expense for people then. Those quickly penned postcards from steamboats/steamships said more in limited words than what we all post here today. A good lesson for present web postings. An old letter I found [c. 1850s] tells how expensive "...paper, envelopes, postage, sealing wax have gotten." 'Sealing wax' caught my eye instantly. When was the last time any here saw a grand or great-grandparent use wax, ink sand with a desk roller on a heavy leather writing pad? The writing ended more as a ceremony with all the desk niceties reflecting an an earlier age now long, long gone.
Even ole' 'Commodore' Fred Laidley parceled out the office postage stamps one-by-one from his center desk drawyer along with admonitions to, "...boys, ya'll use as little writing paper and envelopes as possible--none of them flying !!!! marks and such. Y'all think I'm made of money?!" Old Laidley could be like that. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
15/04/2011 5:07 am
hi All
The speed at which the US post Office delivers 2nd class mail, My Waterways Journal, is amazing. Once it got to me on Monday the posted date of Printing. It actually gets to the PO on Saturday. The one that arrive today took a month publication date March 14 arrived today April 14th. Steamboat to St Joseph and Pony Express or Stage coach would get it here to the mountains faster. In the good old days mail went by train in Mail Cars where it was sorted as the train went from one town to the next. At small towns they didn't stop just gave the mail a toss out the door while a mechanical arm caught the mail from the town that was hung on a special post.
Midway to Heaven (title of a book by a local author)
15/04/2011 9:40 am
To Think - Amtrak had the contract
Under Amtrak President George Warrington, the postal service used railroads again for transportation. Of course the mail was pre-sorted at the bulk delivery center and not sorted out on the train like the old days. Perhaps if they would have gone back to the old model - either locomotive or by inland vessel, your Waterways Journal could be delivered on time.